Design

An experienced landscape designer and former teacher shares insights and inspiring images of her earth and child-friendly designs as well as from schoolyards visited on her recent study tour of Germany and Sweden. Participants will learn about sustainable, engaging spaces that bring nature to the places where children are. Discover essential elements of natural play and learning spaces and their importance for healthy development: natural climbing, digging, and pretending places; outdoor art and literacy spaces; beautiful native and edible kid-friendly plants.

This month’s presenter, Nancy Striniste, founder and principal designer at EarlySpace, is on the faculty of Antioch New England University’s graduate program in Nature-Based Early Childhood Education, and is the author of the forthcoming book “Nature Play at Home: Creating Outdoor Playspaces to Reconnect Kids to the Natural World” Timber Press. Her design practice includes the creation of sustainable natural play and learning spaces for early childhood programs, public and private schools, public parks, and private residences throughout the mid-Atlantic. You can see her work at www.earlyspace.com

Water issues such as drought, infrastructure failure, and restrictions on use are things we have all gotten used to hearing but often don’t consider further. The truth is that globally our thirst for water is increasing at an alarming rate with no end in sight. The reality is that only 2.5% of the earth’s water is freshwater and half of that is tied up in glaciers and ice caps. Water reuse is a viable solution to the water issues facing us all. Understanding how to apply basic principles of water reuse planning and system application will ensure we have enough water for generations.

What if all the water you used in your house was purified on site and you used it again? It is actually not all that different than a well and septic system, but it is a closed loop system relying on technology instead of an open one relying on the surrounding environment. In the wake of these rapid fire extreme weather events, perhaps it is time to start thinking about more resilient, decentralized systems for providing something as vital to survival as water.

The way that we design and construct the built environment is often split apart into what seem to be somewhat unrelated disciplines. There is one big problem with that approach: everything is connected. How do we make sense of the complex ways that the design of the building itself affects the site that it sits on, the social fabric around it and in turn the rest of the world? Join us this month as Leidy Klotz helps us take a step back to see the bigger picture by thinking in “systems”: merging design and behavioral science for a more sustainable and resilient built environment.

Our speaker this month is Leidy Klotz: professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture at the University of Virginia focusing on how connected design thinking creates a healthier, resilient and socially equitable built environment. He has recently published the engaging book: “Sustainability through Soccer: An Unexpected Approach to Saving Our World”

There are two types of technology change: Incremental and Disruptive. As a designer, disruptive is way more fun.

Incremental: How do we get more with less? For showers, building codes limit their consumption to 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) while green building rating systems are pushing manufacturers to get more with less; down to 1.5 gpm. The problem is that at a certain point there is a physical limit to the incremental change and efficiency gains will level off. My gut says that for shower heads this point is somewhere around 1.2 gpm. Any 50% reduction is something to be proud of, but it has taken a long time.

Disruptive: What if we ask a different question altogether: “Is there a better way to take a shower?” A couple startups are trying to answer this question with what they call a cloud shower. Previously only available as a luxury shower add-on, the technology is similar to a type of commercial humidifier. They claim that their technology not only uses 75% less water, but also provides a much more luxurious showering experience: providing more even coverage and rinsing more effectively. We now have a sudden 75% drop in water consumption, which also results in a major drop in the amount of water that needs to be heated, which in turn saves a lot of money. All this by simply swapping out a shower head! Brilliant!

Crozet, Virginia is becoming a vibrant, bustling, livable and walkable center. Within walking distance of all the amenities that this growing town has to offer in the heart of an existing neighborhood is the possibility of yet another community that shifts the focus away from the personal automobile to personal interaction. Click here to see the full design.

If you want to live here, invest in the concept, or help make it a reality please contact us.

On January 10th, Dr. Matthew Trowbridge, Associate Professor in the UVA School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine and Director of the UVA-USGBC Green Health Partnership will discuss his work to simulate application of an integrative process to advance public health and well-being outcomes in the context of building design and construction. The Green Health Partnership seeks to answer the question “How might we establish a culture of health by creating healthy places, together? By applying green building principles of market transformation to promote healthy places, the partnership looks to better define the value proposition for health promotion within the built environment, develop tools for building and public health practitioners to create healthy places, and build technical capacity to apply health promotion tools. Work towards these goals includes the development of frameworks, such as a LEED v4 pilot credit – Integrated Process for Health Promotion, training and workshops, partnerships such as with Enterprise Green Communities and GreenStar Australia, and market development through engagement with real estate investors and GRESB.

Dr. Trowbridge will be joined by Julia Monteith, UVA’s Senior Land Use Planner and Andrea Trimble, UVA’s Sustainability Director, who will discuss the application of research work in relation to UVA’s on-Grounds planning, design, construction, and broader sustainability initiatives.

—————————————————————————————————–

This luncheon will be held at City Space, 100 5th St. NE, on the Downtown Mall, Charlottesville, VA. Doors open at 11:45 and the Seminar begins at 12:00. Luncheons are open to the public. Lunch is provided, attendance is free for GVGBC members and $10 for non members. Register Here

Biophilia refers to our innate tendencies to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. This presentation will explore how biophilic design at a city-wide level can generate positive health and wellbeing. Firstly, it will present a theoretical framework that explains why nature has a positive health effect, together with a model of ‘green health’. Examples of this model will be presented across three themes: mental health focusing on stress regulation; the life span (children and older people) and chronic health conditions (Alzheimer’s and Cancer Care) with examples drawn from around the world.

Speaker: Jenny Roe is Professor of Design and Health, and the Director of the Center of Design and Health at the School of Architecture, University of Virginia in the US. An environmental psychologist, she has expertise in how the design of the built environment can maximize human flourishing and mental wellbeing. Before her move to the USA, she worked alongside environmental scientists and health professionals as Leader in Human Wellbeing and Behavior Change for the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) exploring how best to build sustainable, resilient and healthy cities. Her research has pioneered methods for quantifying the health benefits of good urban design, using physiological indicators such as cortisol – the stress hormone – and mobile electroencephalography (EEG) to explore emotional activity on the move in cities, a form of ‘neuro-urbanism’. Much of her research explores health inequities in economically disadvantaged communities, including racial/ethnic minorities, children and teenagers, the elderly, and people with chronic health conditions including severe mental health problems.

This luncheon will be held at City Space, 100 5th St. NE, on the Downtown Mall, Charlottesville, VA. Doors open at 11:45 and the Seminar begins at 12:00. Luncheons are open to the public. Lunch is provided, attendance is free for GVGBC members and $10 for non members.

Crozet, Virginia is becoming a vibrant, bustling, livable and walkable center. Within walking distance of all the amenities that this growing town has to offer in the heart of an existing neighborhood is the possibility of a community that shifts the focus away from the personal automobile to personal interaction. Click here to see the full design.

If you want to live here, invest in the concept, or help make it a reality please contact us.

Check out the latest and greatest plans for the buildings of Ecovillage Charlottesville designed in collaboration with Øesch Environmental Design featuring compact, energy efficient living spaces in the form of flats and townhouses with a large indoor/outdoor shared kitchen and dining area spaces on the rooftop and the utmost attention to livability, natural light, privacy, energy efficiency, and functionality.